The present invention relates to a cache memory, and more particularly one for storing continuous data.
In a conventional cache memory, an address (tag) array is indexed (retrieved) for each access made from a processor to a cache memory and then making determination as to its registration (hit/miss-hit) in the cache memory. However, this conventional technology makes no classification of data registered in the cache memory and treats the data independently. Accordingly, no consideration is given to any relationship even if any relationship exists between data, and the determination of hit/miss-hit in the cache memory must be performed each time.
Some of the conventional cache memories pay particular attention to locality of address location of programs and operands executed by a processor. Thus, such a cache memory has employed a control system which retrieves, if data requested to be fetched by the processor hits the cache memory, a block next to the block thereof and pre-fetches, if the data miss-hits the cache memory, to a main storage unit.
However, the foregoing conventional technology is disadvantageous in that the necessity of hit/miss-hit determination carried out each time makes it difficult to perform high-speed accessing for reading continuous data.